


Where James Rhodes Imparts a Basic Fact and Tony Stark is Every College Student's Hero

by cosmicocean



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Tony Stark Has A Heart, i'm just throwing it in here cause there is some and people might like the heads up, the other avengers are referenced but no one else really has a part in this one, the pepperony is really light btw, tony finds the cost of college personally affronting and he's gonna fight it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 12:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14105640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicocean/pseuds/cosmicocean
Summary: The way Rhodey tells it, Tony loses his shit.Tony disagrees. He would argue that he, in a calculated way, expressed his concerns in an animated manner.Rhodey still says Tony loses his shit.Tony knows Pepper believes Rhodey.Where Tony finds out how much college tends to cost, and decides that something must be done.





	Where James Rhodes Imparts a Basic Fact and Tony Stark is Every College Student's Hero

**Author's Note:**

> SURPRISE I STILL KNOW HOW TO WRITE FICS THAT AREN'T DIRK GENTLY ONES
> 
> This fic takes place after Iron Man 3, and we should all just assume that Ultron doesn't happen.

The way Rhodey tells it, Tony loses his shit. 

Tony disagrees. He would argue that he, in a calculated way, expressed his concerns in an animated manner.

Rhodey still says Tony loses his shit.

Tony _knows_ Pepper believes Rhodey.

 

It starts when Rhodey’s at the Tower for Super Secret Avengers Business that is actually the two of them making peanut butter and jelly paninis with a waffle maker like when they were in college. Tony had smuggled it into their dorm and hid it under his bed. They’re munching on their sandwiches when Rhodey says “man, my brother and his husband are calculating how to send Lacey to college and the numbers look _terrible_.”

Tony blinks. He’s met Rhodey’s niece. She’s a smart girl, smart enough to probably get into lots of schools. “She’s having trouble getting accepted?”

“She’s having trouble figuring out how they’re gonna pay for it.”

Tony frowns. “It can’t be that bad, can it? It’s got to be just a little money.”

Rhodey stares at him for a moment, then says “I always forget that your parents took care of your education.”

“So?” Tony feels only vaguely defensive, and only of his mother.

“So you could go to any school you wanted, man. That’s not the way it works.”

“How much can college cost, really, though?”

Rhodey tells him.

This is the part where he’ll insist Tony loses his shit.

 

_“HOW ARE PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO AFFORD THAT?”_ Tony demands. _“EDUCATION SHOULDN’T BE THIS EXPENSIVE. TEXTBOOKS ARE THAT EXPENSIVE? SERIOUSLY?”_

Rhodey’s watching in fascination. “It’s like watching a hummingbird on caffeine go wild.”

“ _AND HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO AFFORD VISITING SCHOOLS IF COLLEGE COSTS THAT MUCH?? WHAT IF THEY DON’T LIKE THE SCHOOL ONCE THEY GET THERE?”_

“Then you’re kind of screwed.”

_“IT’S BULLSHIT. SOMETHING SHOULD BE DONE.”_

 

Tony talks to Pepper, and they make an arrangement.

Pepper won’t let Tony pay for every college student’s tuition in the country, citing “reasonable behavior” and “you’ll bankrupt us”. Tony grudgingly admits she has a point there.

Tony does, however, come out with some stuff in his favor that Pepper agrees is good.

“It’s very sweet, what you’re doing,” she says, kissing him on the forehead. “I like it.”

“Thank you. I promise to not bankrupt us.”

Her eyes twinkle. “No promises you can’t keep, Tony.”

 

Tony holds a press conference the next day where he announces 100 scholarships at various schools around the country to help kids get into school.

“Listen,” he tells them, leaning on the podium as the cameras flash. “Not gonna lie, born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I didn't even know how much college costs until a friend told me. But it’s not right. Any kid, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, whatever. They deserve to have a good education. And I’m going to do my best to help give it to them.”

The camera flashes intensify as reporters scribble. He decides to drop the big bomb on them.

“Oh, by the way. Any student who emails me asking for help paying for their textbooks, I’ll cover the cost completely. Let me know.”

He leaves then. He considers it a mic drop.

 

For the first week, he doesn’t get any emails.

“It’s cause they’re scared,” Pepper says one night. “They probably don’t believe you.”

Tony takes to Twitter that night (he’s at Ryan Reynolds levels of awesome on Twitter, if you ask him) and sends out “Hey. Not screwing around on that textbook thing. Talk to me.”

The next morning, he gets his coffee from an intern when he shows up to the Stark labs to check in on how it’s going. Back in B.A.R. (Before Arc Reactor) he was an asshole to the interns. He hates mornings. Now he’s less of an asshole and understands that it’s not their fault that the sun insists on rising every day. He actually has a pretty good reputation among them now. The new ones are always uneasy because the other ones tell them that he’ll chop off their hands if the coffee’s not a certain temperature or something.

This intern nervously hands him his cup, which is weird because this guy isn’t new. This is Brett, who’s been with them for about three months.

“Everything okay, Brett?”

Brett clears his throat. “I, uh. I heard about your new email program, and next year I have a bunch of classes, so I was kind of hoping, about the textbooks-“

“Email me what you need, Brett, we’ll figure it out.”

Brett stares, then realizes he’s staring, and quickly casts his eyes somewhere else. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

“Sure thing.” Tony claps him on the shoulder. “Go do intern-y things.”

“Yes, Mr. Stark.”

 

Then the emails start pouring in. 

The nice thing about having established a company and handing it over to the love of your life is that you have a lot of free time and when Tony’s not being called away on Avengers business, he’s combing through the emails. Sometimes even when he’s on Avengers business, JARVIS reading him the emails through the helmet. He catalogues each one in his mind, creates a personalized response for them, orders their textbooks.

His responses aren’t necessarily that eloquent. He tells them how their classes sound interesting. And they do, for the most part. If they don’t, their excitement bleeds through into their writing and he kind of loves that.

_I’m not gonna lie, I know fuck all about English_ , he writes at one point. _But I can tell it makes you happy, so what the fuck do I know? Have fun. Here’s your books._

(he uses express shipping so they get them as quick as they need)

 

“Would you pay for my books if I went back to college?” Clint asks one day, grinning at him. The entire team is proud of him. Tony would be able to tell, even if they hadn’t elected Steve (and there was _definitely_ a meeting about it, for a man who does things on the fly Steve does like his meetings) to tell him that they were pleased with him for the college and school thing. 

“Depends.” Tony doesn’t look up from the email he’s writing. _I don’t know a lot about Greek history_ , he puts down. _But I see you’re going into education too, so maybe someday I’ll be able to take a class from you. You wouldn’t want me in your class, though; I’ve heard from some people I can be “hyper” and “hard to handle”. Which, how rude, right?_ “Can you afford to pay for them yourself on your mighty SHIELD retainer?”

“Maaaaaybe.”

“Then probably not.”

 

“What about paying for their transportation to visit colleges?” Pepper asks when she’s leaning over his shoulder to look at the emails he’s reading. “We could manage that.”

Tony looks up at her. “I’m in love with you.”

She smiles and leaves a stack of forms he needs to sign, because Pepper Potts is a woman who knows how to take advantage of his good moods. “I already knew that.”

 

He tweets it out, and soon he’s getting emails that ask for that, too. He gets a shy one that says she lives in California and really wants to go to school at Emerson but her parents want her to visit to make sure she likes it so far away, and is it too much trouble? He not only sends her the money, but tells her not to worry about being too much trouble all the time, because _he’s_ been reliably informed that he’s a _lot_ of trouble, and while it hasn’t all been good, some of it’s gotten him to where he needs to go.

 

“This is insane,” Rhodey says, looking around Tony’s workshop, full of emails pulled up on screens so Tony can roll from one to one in his swivel chair. Rhodey’s grinning wide. “ _You’re_ insane.”

“Yup.” Tony’s rapidly typing. “Wanna say anything to Alice in Wichita?”

Rhodey looks a little confused. “Hi, Alice from Wichita?”

_My best friend says hi,_ Tony says. _He’s the reason I started this whole thing._

 

Tony’s set up a program for JARVIS to run, where he scans the name of the email senders with rich families that can damn well afford to pay for their books AND their kid’s schooling AND maybe a yacht as a graduation present. So when they start coming through, he easily sends their emails into the trash.

After number fifty of that kind, he puts a tweet out.

_Hey, rich assholes. I know what you’re doing. Cut it out or your names will go public_.

They all stop after that, funnily enough.

 

One girl emails him with an unusual request. Her name is Evelyn, and she doesn’t want textbooks. She doesn’t want to get across the country to visit a school either. She wants a plane ticket to New York from Minnesota so she can make it to an audition for an off-Broadway play. It’s a new piece, about a small town dealing with Cold War tensions in the 1950s.

_Please,_ she emails him. _I can only afford the hotel. I know you normally do textbooks, but this is what I’m following instead of a major or a degree. I know it’s a long shot. But please._

He sends her the ticket immediately with a note about how he has faith in her, and how he’ll take her to meet Sondheim someday if she wants. He adds if she can sing he’s sure she’d be great in a Tony Stark musical, if the occasion ever arose.

 

The school year gets underway, and the emails start to trail off. Tony isn’t surprised; he expects it to pick up again before the spring semester. He goes back to checking in on the labs, Avengering, tinkering in his own lab. 

Then, one day he’s tinkering with new arrows for Clint (“make them explode,” he’d told Tony, “but with like glue. Sticky arrows”) when his email pings.

“JARVIS, unless it’s Pepper, file that away somewhere where I don’t have to deal with it for now.”

“Sir, I think you might want to see this one.”

Tony bends over a screen to see an email containing a JPEG and a message from a Cynthia Ando. He opens the photo to see a young Asian-American woman holding up a test that has a _100%_ on it, grinning widely. He reads the email.

_Mr. Stark-_

_I emailed you for my nursing textbooks earlier this year, as well as visiting this school. Going here cemented my desire to attend, and studying those same textbooks helped me get 100% on this test! Thank you so much for everything._

_Cynthia._

Tony puts down Clint’s “sticky arrows” and writes a response.

_Cynthia-_

_You did a lot better than I did my first two months at college, I’m not sure I even showed_ up _to class. I’m glad I could help._

_Tony._

 

He grins like an idiot for the rest of the day.

 

The emails start coming in again. This time it’s pictures of tests, quizzes, all with good grades. Art students send him pictures of sculptures they’ve made. One student, Carlos, sends him a photo of an art piece that’s an image of the Iron Man helmet, but done completely in Skittles. Tony immediately emails him that if he’s comfortable with it, he’d love to have it for his collection in the Tower. Carlos replies “ngl i almost shit myself a little bit at your last email, sir”. Tony appreciates the honesty. He pays for the shipping and proudly hangs it in the gym of the Tower. The entire building is decorated in artwork they’ve all collected over their time together.

“Is it straight?” Tony asks Pepper, studying it. “I want it to be straight.”

“Looks straight to me,” Pepper says, tilting her head a couple times to be sure.

“It’s very nice.” Rhodey looks approving. “Even if I kind of want to eat it.”

Tony anticipated this. He wordlessly hands Rhodey a bag of Skittles. Rhodey takes it and silently opens it. He’s pretty sure he can see Pepper roll her eyes out of the corner of his, but she’s also smiling, so he figures it’s a win.

 

Evelyn’s play becomes huge. Unfortunately, for the opening night, Tony was in medical because he got hit by a HYDRA agent. But for the opening night when it makes it to Broadway, Tony is stabbed in the gut free and Pepper’s charity event gets moved to next week, so they attend the show in the front row. Evelyn is amazing, just like he knew she’d be.

Afterwards, they go backstage to say hi to her. She shakes their hands, grinning a little bashfully when Tony starts clapping at the sight of her.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you,” she tells him shyly. “All of this, it’s thanks to you.”

“Nah.” He claps her on the shoulder. “I just kicked in the cash. The rest of it, that’s thanks to your talent.”

“The cash is a big deal, sir.”

Tony pulls a face. “Ugh. No _sir._ My butler calls me _sir,_ and sometimes Hawkeye, when he’s been annoying me and I make him call me sir before I give him the stuff I made him. You wouldn’t have gotten the part if you weren’t good at this, Evelyn. Own your shit.” He flips out his sunglasses and slides them on because being honest is a weird and crawly feeling on his skin sometimes.

She blushes and grins at him. “Are you wearing sunglasses at night, Mr. Stark?”

“Don’t sass me, kid.”

 

Lacey swings by the lab one afternoon in a pair of sweatpants patterned like the trans flag and a giant Star Trek hoodie, hair yanked into a ponytail and bags under her eyes clear through her glasses. Tony’s seen the kid enough (he’d offered to help her move into her dorm, for Christ’s sake) to know they’re her standard “I am so tired and the world is terrible so I shouldn’t have to wear clothes I can’t sleep in” outfit. JARVIS knows to let her in on sight.

“You remember how you told me you get bored when you don’t have stuff to invent for a while and you wanted to invent me something before I left school as a ‘congrats you got into Columbia’ present even though you paid for my textbooks and offered to pay for my whole tuition?” she asks.

Tony spins around in his chair. “Tell me what you need, young Rhodes.”

“I need a coffeemaker that will start at a preset time, make the coffee, add the amount of cream and sugar I want for me, deposit it in a travel mug I put in there the night before, and have it ready for me by a certain time.”

“Midterms?”

“Midterms.”

“Colors?”

“Something pretty but classy. Like pastels.”

Tony pulls up the notepad that he likes to put on his screens to flash and remind him of things. _Make Lacey the most badass but tasteful coffeemaker on the planet._ “Consider it done.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” Tony spins in his chair all the way around this time, just cause he can. “Your uncle in town?”

“He’s doing something something classified something something.”

“Tch. _Boring._ ”

“Right?” Lacey yawns. “All right, I gotta go study some more.”

“Don’t burn yourself out, kid, that’s how you end up mixing the bag of chocolate chip cookies you were gonna munch on while looking over your Physics homework with the bag of loose change on your desk and you eat like seven quarters before you notice and then your best friend has to take you to the hospital while he yells at you about the consistency of cookies versus the consistency of coins.”

“…good to know.”

“I hear your tone, don’t patronize an old man.”

She grins. “Thank you for the coffeemaker.” She turns to go but pauses. “Hey, uh. You know everyone… really appreciates this, right?”

“What, are other kids gonna be mooching off your coffeemaker? Do I need to add more spots for more travel mugs?”

“No, not that. The-“ she waves her hand. “The college stuff.”

“Oh, that. It’s not a big-“

“Yeah, but it is, though,” she interrupts. “You should hear the way kids on campus talk about you. This is more important to a lot of guys than your Avenging stuff.”

Tony wants to make some quip about how if not for the Avenging stuff, there wouldn’t be any opportunities to do the college stuff, but she looks too earnest for him to feel good about doing it, so instead he shrugs awkwardly.

“Your right to education shouldn’t be determined by your economic standing,” he says. “That’s bullshit. Everyone should have the ability to learn if they want to.”

“Yeah, well, maybe they should, but they don’t really, so it’s pretty cool that you’re doing this. And I know Uncle Jamey is really proud of you.”

He shrugs again.

“I won’t make you talk about this anymore.”

“Thank _god._ No offense, but, _feelings_ , just-“

“Yeah, no, I get it.” Lacey hauls her backpack over her shoulder. “If you wanted to make the coffeemaker have the ability to get flavor shots in there, I wouldn’t object.”

She gives him a little salute and heads out of the lab. Tony starts absentmindedly drawing up plans for her coffeemaker, but he’s thinking about something bigger at the same time.

 

“So what am I looking at?” Rhodey asks as Tony circles the hologram in the middle of the lab. Tony had persuaded him to come with the promise of pizza and the chance to try and beat him at Wii Sports.

“A building.”

“Yeah, thanks, man, I can see that. What’s it a building _for?_ ”

Tony spins the hologram a little. It’s a building of a reasonable size. He’s already got the plot of land picked out, an old office building he’s gonna spruce up and get up to code and refurbish. “I’m creating a foundation. I’m gonna flip this place for it. Do people still say flip it?”

“I think that’s only if you’re planning to resell it.”

“Huh. I should take Thor up on his offer to watch more HGTV with him.”

“Why are you making a foundation?”

“I wanna take the college thing bigger. The scholarships, the textbooks, paying for tickets, it’s a start. But I wanna do more.” He pulls up a list next to it. It’s bulleted. He’s very proud of his organization. “We’re gonna offer programs that work with high schools to help kids get to college in the first place. This building’s gonna be in New York for now, but the programs will be offered across the country and maybe we’ll put other buildings in other cities eventually, I dunno, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.” He has, actually, and in five years he wants a couple more buildings in the Midwest, a couple down South, and a couple on the West Coast, but he figures introducing it to other people he might as well start with an easily achievable goal for now. “The building in New York’ll offer specific departments where you can go and consult with people about your future area of study, there’ll be rooms to work in, there’ll be groups you can join of kids you want to do the same thing as you, whole nine yards. I’m naming them after people, cause, I mean, I’m not that innovative a namer, whatever. Pepper Potts Department of Business & Management, Bruce Banner Department of Physics, you know, that kinda thing.”

“Are you serious?”

“I mean, I already bought the building and we’re starting construction tomorrow, so yeah, I feel pretty serious about it.”

“Tony, this is…” Rhodey circles it this time. “This is _insanity._ ”

Tony folds his arms. “Do you mean it’s insanity in a good way or a bad way?” His tone is a little snarky, but the question is at least half serious. Rhodey’s leveler than him, and if he thinks it’s undoable, it might actually be undoable.

“No, in…” he grins. “In a kinda awesome way. Who’s gonna run it?”

“I’ll start interviewing for positions and stuff in a little while. Bruce already agreed to pop in and lecture and help out in his kinda areas, Natasha wants to teach self defense classes, and I think that’s probably a really good idea, so we’ll probably set something up there, too. Clint wants to hang out in the rafters and heckle birds, so I’m thinking about putting explicit instructions in there to not have any rafters.” In reality, Clint wants to help out as an athletics kinda coach, and for all his objections about Barton’s general existence, he thinks he’d be pretty good at it. “I’m gonna get some internships going, too.”

“Make sure they’re paid ones.”

“For sure.”

“This is a good idea, Tony.”

“I have ‘em, from time to time.”

“Why did you call me here to look at it?”

Tony reaches and pinches the hologram out so it zooms into the shimmery blue sign on the front of the building. Rhodey bends over and peers at it, and then goes very still.

“What do you think of the name?” he asks, trying to pretend he’s not having some anxiety related butterflies about the whole situation and knowing Rhodey can probably tell. “I thought about going for something snazzy, like _Thunder McNautilus’s Badass School For Badass Persons_ , but people probably wouldn’t take it seriously, so I changed my mind.”

“Tony…” Rhodey reaches out and pokes at the hologram, which glitches slightly in response, the sign _The James Rhodes Foundation For Educational Pursuits_ flickering a little. “Why? It’s your thing.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have done it without you.”

“But-“

“And here’s the thing.” Tony stares at the hologram so he doesn’t have to look at Rhodey. “You’ve been my best friend since we were kids, okay? I know I was a fucking handful when we were in college. I mean, shit, I was a fucking handful almost my whole life, but you stuck by me, y’know? You’ve called me out on my shit and you’ve supported me and you’ve just been… fun to hang out with at the same time. You’ve been a good friend, and without you I wouldn’t be a lot of things, and all of the things I wouldn’t be because of you are the good ones. And this whole thing got started cause of you. Without you, I wouldn’t have known any of this crap. So it’s thanks to you. And it means a lot to me, and you deserve to have, I dunno, monuments named after you, but this is the best I got, so it’ll have to do for now.”

They’re both quiet for a minute. Then Rhodey straightens and bumps Tony’s shoulder with his. Tony bumps his back.

“I’m glad you’re my best friend,” Rhodey says quietly.

“Yeah. Me, too.” He clears his throat. “I wanted to appoint you head of the whole thing, but I realized you don’t really have a lot of experience managing… giant foundations, and that you probably wouldn’t want to leave your job anyway.”

“Not really. I appreciate the thought, though.”

“If you wanna pop in and talk about, I dunno, flying and stuff, though, you can. And, y’know, if you ever retire from your job, I bet we could find a spot for you to work there.”

“I might like that first part. And the second one, someday.”

They’re comfortably silent again.

“You wanna go play video games?” Rhodey asks. “I’ve been playing the bowling game with Lacey recently, so I’ll probably kick your ass.”

“Hell yeah, but the real high score to beat is Rogers’s, dude is weirdly good at Wii Bowling.”

Tony switches off the hologram and the two of them head up the stairs, bickering about who exactly is gonna kick Steve off the top spot.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kinda tired of seeing everyone at each other's throats in the Marvel fandom about literally everything so I finished this fic I started writing like two years ago. Consider it a break from the madness.


End file.
